Thunder salutes military

STOCKTON - Serge Lara stood next to his young son and took photos with his cellphone as the Stockton Thunder players unveiled a large American flag in the middle of the ice.

Scott Linesburgh

STOCKTON - Serge Lara stood next to his young son and took photos with his cellphone as the Stockton Thunder players unveiled a large American flag in the middle of the ice.

The 38-year-old United States Air Force technical sergeant thought it was the perfect way to debut Military Appreciation Weekend at Stockton Arena.

"That was an absolutely phenomenal way to start," said Lara. "It's just great."

The two-day event began Friday when the Thunder played the Ontario Reign and continues at 7:30 p.m. today when it hosts the San Francisco Bulls. Tickets were given out to military members and their families, and $2 of every ticket sold will benefit the Welcome Home Heroes Foundation, an organization designed to support U.S. veterans and their local families for housing and financial needs.

The team wore camouflage jerseys, and there were displays around the arena and video packages honoring soldiers. After the pregame introductions, every Thunder player helped unroll the flag at center ice before the national anthem.

Lara, a native of Langhorn, Pa. who is stationed at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, brought his son, Cayden, 5, with him.

"It's the first time we've been to a Thunder game, and we really appreciate what people have done," Lara said.

Thunder president Dan Chapman said the franchise had been looking for an opportunity to do a major promotion in support of the armed forces.

"We've always done smaller tributes tied to the military, they have always been well received," Thunder president Dan Chapman said. "We realized we wanted to take it to another level, so we decided to do military jerseys and built this promotion around it. Our fans have really rallied around this event."

A group of vocal Thunder supporters in Section 101, who sit behind the visitor's bench wear shirts emblazoned with "We Make Players Cry," organized to buy groups of tickets and donate them to military families. Holly Ratto, one of the organizers in Section 101, said about 300 tickets have been gathered for the two games.

"We saw that the promotion was on the schedule, and we tend to be a patriotic group," Ratto said. "We started to discuss ideas about how we can help. And the idea which stuck was to find a way to get tickets. We donated money, found others to donate money, and the Thunder worked with us to make this happen."

Technical Sergeant Ryan Padgett of the United States Air Force attended the game with his wife, Krisha, who he admitted was the bigger hockey fan in the family.

"She loves it, and it's a lot of fun," said Padgett, 30. "It's really nice when a community gets together and tries to do something nice for us."

The first 5,000 fans in attendance on Friday received a commemorative poster from the event and the first 500 children ages 12 and younger were given a United States flag. On Saturday, the first 2,000 fans 13 and older will receive a commemorative red, white and blue cap.